What I Learned About Persistence from our iRobot Mimi

Yes, my husband and I have a robot. My son convinced me it was a cool way for us to – cut back on our housekeeper expenses without me having to do all the work.

And wow, I amazed what Mimi, our name of the Mint iRobot, can do. I’m not sure where or how that name came to me but we call our robot, Mimi.

My blogger friend Catarina Alexon just blogged about, Want to turn your phone into a robot? as I was putting this post in draft form. So you can see, robots are – hot, hot, hot.

When Mimi arrived she was packed amazingly securely, in a box about 10 times of her actual size. The message of this to me was, “wow, this company cares about their product.”

Once I had all the inside packaging out and laid things out, the introvert in me finds it easy to read directions, all directions before I get started. Or is that a woman thing? It all seemed easy enough to get going so I decided on an early morning test. Even our dog Chanel came out to watch.

After scoping out the best starting place for Mimi, and getting the placement for the second cube, I was ready to get her sweeping within minutes. That’s the easy part.

Mimi, uses a navigation system set in motion by small cubes, to help her navigate a room or go from one room to another. Wanting the best return on my investment Mimi was charged up to maneuver around about 1,800 square feet of hardwood floors.

Feeling like I needed to watch her the first couple of times to be certain how hard she might hit a foot of furniture or if she would get stuck on any of the scatter rugs, I decided to work on my iPad in the great room and kitchen instead of my office that morning.

I’ve got to tell you, this is a true blessing! Mimi cleans now and I can go about my daily tasks. While I watched her, I found some insights to apply to being persistent in sales, and life for that matter.

Robot Reality:

–      You’re going to get stuck. There were a couple of areas where Mimi went where she had to back up, go forward and do this a few times to be able to get back on the path. Isn’t that like life is? Not always a straight line from maybe, sickness to being well, or being overweight to being your perfect weight, from starting a business to growing it? Like Mimi, go forward, back and do it until you get back on track to what you want.

–      Get some help. Okay so Mimi has a distinct advantage with her navigation cubes. Consider this: if you are stuck in a family problem, call on a friend even if just to talk. Or if it’s a business problem, consider a coach or a business mastermind group.

–      Once might not be enough. Interestingly, Mimi would often go over an area two or three times. Now I would naturally do this if I were cleaning. But sometimes in life and business, three times might be just the trick. Like if you are in sales, one follow-up call is not going to cut it.

–      Slowly but surely. Mimi got stuck, she swept two and three times, she sometimes lost her bearings with the cubes, but eventually, she landed right back where she started with the job complete. One of my favorite quotations sums this up, “It’s not whether you get knocked down, it’s whether you get up.” by Vince Lombardi.

So much wisdom from a robot and I haven’t even covered it all here with you.

Do you have a robot? What does it do in your household? Have you learned any life or business lessons that you would tell me about?